Lifetime Estimation of Semiconducting Components in 8MW Wind Turbine Generators with ”Power Boost” Functionality

In this paper the potential damaging influence of the Power Boost function on the lifetime of the machine side converter (MSC) in a 8.0 MW wind turbine with a diameter of 154 meters will be investigated. Power Boost increases the power production of a wind turbine system by 5% at high wind speeds by increasing the maximum allowable rotational speed.First, a tool will be presented to model the large timescale thermal behaviour of the MSC to extract the annual thermal behaviour with and without Power Boost.

Afterwards, the thermal behaviour will be assigned to three individual power module lifetime estimation models from different manufacturers to compare the effect of Power Boost on the estimated lifetime of the MSC. It is concluded that the critical components of the MSC are the diodes and thier lifetime decreases with Power Boost enabled.